


Single Above Elbow

by The_Dancing_Walrus



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Amputation, Comfort, Gen, Recovery, living as an amputee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1325110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Dancing_Walrus/pseuds/The_Dancing_Walrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While struggling to come to terms with losing his arm to Daniel Dr Whale comes across a man who knows exactly what he's going through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Single Above Elbow

He shouldn’t have been in the hospital.

 

Well actually he probably _should_ have been in the hospital but he should have been acting like a proper patient: staying in bed with his pain medication rather than wandering in a dreadful parody of his normal rounds. As if he still thought he was a doctor.

 

The voice over the hospital speakers was calling another doctor, with increasing urgency, to the ER. A few weeks ago it would have been calling him. Which probably shouldn’t have hurt.

 

They were keeping him out of the loop now. Something had happened, something serious, and he had no idea what it was. Because this wasn’t _his_ hospital anymore. Because he hadn’t swallowed his pride and crawled to Mister Gold.

 

Because now he could remember everything he’d lost and everything that devil could ask for in payment and he wasn’t sure he wanted to lose his soul for his left arm just yet.

 

And somehow, with the same remorseless logic that had led a man looking for life to graveyards, he’d ended up in an out-of-the-way room flipping through a stranger’s chart.

 

Cracked ribs, bruises, cuts and a possibility of concussion. A car crash apparently, which explained the commotion-

 

“How long?” The stranger asked jolting him out of his thoughts.

 

“Excuse me?” He glanced up enough to catch the man gesturing at his left side and he was about to snarl something just as thoughtless and obnoxious as that question when his eye caught something on the chart-

 

 

Single below elbow.

 

He looked up. The man smiled through his bruises and waved his stump. ‘Welcome to the club’ Whale thought bitterly.

 

“Three and a half weeks ago.” Whale replied and was surprised by the bile in his tone. “It was- It was a lab accident.”

 

The man’s grin faded into something grim. He nodded, once, glanced towards the corner of the room-

 

“It gets easier.” He volunteered.

 

“So I’ve heard.”

 

“Oh come now,” The stranger said with totally false cheer. “Think of all the advantages; less nails to cut, you’ll never burn your left hand again and you’ll always have a socially acceptable reason for carrying a murderous blunt instrument.”

 

It was humour so dark it startled a laugh out of him, a single short ‘Ha’.

 

“Seriously mate,” The man said levering himself up further before winching and sinking back into his pillows. “It’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t have to stop you from getting what you want.”

 

He sighed. “There are very few one-handed surgeons in the world.”

 

“Not many one-handed sailors either.” The stranger replied. “I managed.”

 

“For how long?” Whale asked and the man shrugged as if the, according to the chart poor quality of amputation he’d received god-alone-knew-where, was nothing to worry about at all.

 

“This? Years ago. I forget how long.” He sounded as though he was talking about an object, something odd he’d had lying around his home for years and years that simply didn’t matter anymore. Whale wondered if he would ever, could ever, be so blasé about…it.

 

“And it really never stopped you?”

 

“Never.” The man insisted.

 

“But it must have held you back-” Whale murmured before it occurred to him that the stranger would probably find that assumption insulting.

 

“May be,” The man allowed. “But if it did I haven’t noticed.”

 

And he sounded so sure, so confident that he was right.

 

Part of Whale, part of _Victor_ , reminded him that sailing was a far cry from surgery but then again he had done the impossible before-

 

And perhaps he hadn’t entirely succeeded then but that added to the reasons he should try now. Somewhere, in another distant land, his brother still needed him, still needed his help.

 

He bowed his head and half-hid the gesture by returning the man’s chart to its proper place.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“Any time mate.” The stranger answered with a grin. “Oh and uh I don’t suppose?”

 

“What?”

 

The man waved his stump at Dr Whale again and his smile turned apologetic. “They took my hook when they brought me in. I don’t suppose you could get it back for me?”

 

The doctor returned his smile; it felt somewhere close to the reassuring expression he used to give his patients and may be would again.

 

“I’ll see what I can do.”


End file.
